The present invention relates to an apparatus for mixing liquids. The liquids may be either hot or cold. In particular, this invention is directed to an improved apparatus which reduces the amount of energy required to mix a liquid in a container, such as a bucket or drum. The use of simple paddles or sticks to mix liquids is well known, but is generally laborious and time consuming.
Improvements upon the simple paddle or stick have been made. For example, Lundahl (see U.S. Pat. No. 1,281,610) discloses a paint-mixing tool having a handle and a blade having a specific configuration designed to be rotated between the palms of the user. The blade of Lundahl's tool is designed to mix paint and, in addition, it may be used to open paint cans by cutting the top away and to scrape. The addition of cutting and scraping functions to the mixing blade requires a more rugged design, which increases the weight of the blade, the manufacturing costs and the friction between the bottom of the blade and the bottom of the container in which the mixing is being done.
Another feature of prior known mixing blades is the manner in which the mixture being mixed is moved in a container. Heretofore, most mixing apparatus incline to spin rather than boil the mixtures. This is a disadvantage of the prior known mixing apparatus because it appears that a spinning motion in a mixture presents considerable resistance to mixing while a boiling motion in the mixture offers the least resistance to mixing.